


Unfreakoutability

by apocryphile



Category: West Wing
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apocryphile/pseuds/apocryphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josh and Donna swap secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfreakoutability

He catches her staring at her ring, again, and feels something swell in his chest – a sense of responsibility, not just for her as a person, but for her feelings for him, for the joy she radiates, for her hopes for their future. It’s what draws him along the couch until he’s almost wrapped around her, what pushes the words into his mouth.

“So, are there any fantasies you’re having to lay to rest now that you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life?”

She giggles, but then sees that his face isn’t as playful as his question implied, and regards him carefully.

“You mean anyone else I’ve been secretly lusting after for years?”

He tries to keep his tone light.

“Not necessarily anyone specific… ah, categories of people maybe.”

She grins quizzically.

“Categories? Josh, are you asking me if I’ve ever wanted to sleep with a woman?”

“It’s the only reason I proposed. So I could get away with asking.”

She smacks him lightly on the arm.

“The thought has crossed my mind, yes. But it was barely even a fantasy, and it’s something I’m perfectly happy to leave unexplored. Rest assured, most of my fantasies either involve you specifically, or scenarios that you could easily feature in.”

“Most of them?”

“Don’t make me give up Matthew Perry, Josh.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. But you’re not coming to the LA fundraisers anymore, he’s always there.”

“Lucky for me, you don’t get to make that call these days.”

He fakes a pout for a moment, and then breaks into a leer so comical he’s laughing at himself when he speaks again.

“That was a nice digression, there, Donnatella.”

“Matthew Perry’s very nice, yes.”

“Wanna tell me about the women you think are nice?”

“No.”

“That’s it? That’s all I get? Just, no?”

“Yeah. No.”

“Donnaaaaa…”

“Why are we talking about this, anyway?”

And suddenly his face is completely serious and then suddenly she knows why, and she’s not even terribly surprised, but still too shocked for a moment to feel anything else about it.

"There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should really have told you before we, ah, well, but…”

“Josh.”

He takes a deep breath, but barely manages to lift his voice above a whisper.

“I had sex with a guy. Just the one guy, but a few times. About 15 years ago.”

She finds his hand, resting on her shoulder, and squeezes it.

“Sam?”

He straightens up and stares at her, and he looks so freaked out she almost regrets speaking, but she wants so badly to be right, and she obviously is and she’s not sure why she finds it such a relief when the fact that she’s guessed obviously horrifies him.

“How did you…?”

“Back when I first met you, you and him… you two were kind of like you and I have been.”

He stares at her again, amazed.

“But you didn’t actually guess…?”

“Not really. I wouldn’t have been able to put it into words. But if there’s one guy you’ve had sex with… It’s not a huge leap, Josh. And it’s OK, it really is.” 

He clutches her hand, squeezes it and turns it over in his grip, running the fingers of his other hand over hers.

“When you say it’s not a leap…”

“I honestly don’t think anyone would ever have guessed. And the people who know you well enough to maybe possibly ever even wonder wouldn’t think it’s anything be ashamed of, and wouldn’t tell a soul.”

He nods, and releases a deep shuddering breath. She knows it’s not over, the worry, and the guilt about it being a source of such concern, but she thinks she can find more and better words again if she needs to.

“I should have told you before.”

“You don’t have to tell me everything. You said you’d always had safe sex and I trust you.”

“It’s not just about that.”

“I know. But you did say sex rather than an affair or a fling or a… a relationship.”

“Yeah.”

“Was it really just sex?”

“I’m not sure. It was… we were… He felt unsure about his sexuality for a while, and he confided in me, and I found it… intriguing. But it didn’t come naturally to us. Not necessarily because we were both guys, although it turned out to be a one time thing for both of us. We were just better as friends. It… I still can’t believe it never got weird, to be honest.”

She nods, and reaches up to smooth his hair. 

“He’s a wonderful man, Josh. If I’d known you back then I would have trusted him with your heart.”

He pulls her hand to his lips and kisses her palm and then her knuckles.

“If I’d known you back then, things would have turned out very differently. I wouldn’t have been interested in experimenting with anyone else. I’m afraid to say you might never have worked at the White House.”

“You’d have kept me at home burning you burgers?”

“No! I mean, I think we’d have a bunch of kids already by now, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t work. But if we’d been together you probably couldn’t have worked for me.”

“Josh, 15 years ago, I was--”

“Oh, God, don’t.”

“As long as you can reassure me that you do actually know how old I am.”

“Do I have to? I know when your birthday is. Besides, I like having a hot young fiancée, I just don’t like thinking about you being nearly underage while I was…”

She shakes her head in mock disapproval, but she’s smiling and twining her arms around his neck.

“Well, your hot young fiancée thinks it’s kinda hot that her mature man was so sexually adventurous back in the day.”

He bursts out laughing.

“Really?”

She smirks at him, but she’s blushing.

“Promise you won’t tell Sam?”

“I should probably tell Sam that you know about this now, but I definitely won’t tell him you think he’s hot.”

“I don’t think Sam’s hot.”

“Liar.”

“Ok, so I guess we have to work with the fact that we both think Sam’s hot.”

He looks pained for a moment but the smile returns quickly.

“I don’t think we’re alone in that respect.”

“We most definitely are not.”

He gathers her up in his arms and tugs her into his lap.

“You’re amazing, you know that? You’re impossible to freak out these days.”

“You were trying to freak me out?”

“No, believe me, I was really trying not to. I just… I don’t know what I did to deserve you, or to have you be so serene and unfreakoutable after everything we’ve been through.”

She kisses him slowly and thoroughly.

“Now that I do know you, I trust you with my heart. Nothing you could tell me is ever going to change that. I’m just so happy that you would tell me something like that. I know how deep you must have had to bury it.”

He adds a few more kisses of his own, and then takes another deep breath.

“I… I wish I wasn’t, but I was so relieved when Sam decided he wanted to be with a woman. Of course, she turned out to be Lisa, at which point I’d have given almost anything for him to bring home some hulking leather-clad stereotype from the Village, but… I wish it didn’t have to be like that, but it could have been really, really rough for him.”

“And for you.”

“Well, I was always pretty clear it was only really about him, and it’s been a pretty easy secret to keep… and even if it hadn’t been, the stakes weren’t as high for me. There’ve been gay staffers at the White House for a while. But Sam… Sam’s going places.”

“There are gay people in the House and the Senate, Josh.”

“I know. But…”

“You really think he can run for President one day.”

“Yeah.”

She beams.

“He’d be amazing.”

“You’re OK with that? I mean, that’s probably three administrations ahead, so that’s me staying in frontline politics basically for the rest of my career.”

“Joshua Lyman, you are the cockiest man on the planet. I do think you might find that there is possibly someone else out there who could get Sam elected President. Even if he was gay, for that matter. And possibly run the White House for whoever gets elected President between now and then. Although having said that, I don’t know that there was ever any doubt, really.”

“That what?”

“That we’re in this for the long haul. Besides, maybe I want to spend the rest of my career in frontline politics, too.”

“You want me to get you elected to something?”

“Maybe the PTA or something at some point.”

“The PTA?”

“You know, after we have all those kids we’d have already had by now if you’d met me right after I graduated high school.”

He breaks into a huge grin.

“And we get to start that soon, right?”

“Well, I was thinking we should wait until we, you know, got married, but seeing as it turns out you’re all non-traditional and stuff…”

“Non-traditional and stuff?”

She head-butts him gently.

“Josh, I’m suggesting that we start trying to conceive a baby, and you’re being sarcastic?”

“Would you have it any other way?”

She rolls her eyes.

“Be that way, and I won’t tell you about the woman we were talking about earlier…”

He bends down to whisper in her ear.

“I think it’s only fair for you to share, really.”

She blinks a few times.

“That’s probably true.”

He takes in the conflicting emotions on her face and composes himself.

“Donna, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. I wanted to tell you about Sam, but that doesn’t mean… I mean, I was kidding. You don’t owe me anything.”

“I know. I was going to tell you anyway. It’s just… it’s a little weird.”

“Weird in comparison to what I told you?”

“Possibly.”

“Wow. Then this I do have to hear.”

She glares at him, but he ignores her and readjusts her in his lap so she’s sitting sideways across his legs and he can see her face properly.

“I thought about getting you to guess. I think I was hoping you’d guess easily and that would make it seem less odd.”

“Want me to try? Because I have some amazing ideas…”

“No. Because I don’t want to hear who else you come up with, or how long it takes you to work it out.”

“Ok, now you’re really confusing me, Don—“

“Amy.”

She’s almost proud that she’s rendered him speechless, but the whole thing still makes her feel vaguely sick. In theory, she’s always found the idea of sex with a woman intriguing, and she plans to tell him this soon and let him have fun with it, but this… this was something else, and she knows it, and she really hopes she’ll feel as much better after telling him as she’s been banking on.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“You thought about…?”

“Yeah.”

“Just you and her or…?”

“Me and her and you?”

“…yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, God.”

“But sometimes just me and her.”

“…”

“Josh, close your mouth.”

“Sorry.”

“Like I said, it’s pretty weird.”

“Is it?”

“Well, would you have guessed?”

“I don’t know, maybe eventually.”

“Who would you have guessed?”

“Never mind that right now. It seems like having felt like this bothers you somehow.”

“It does.”

“Why?”

“Why wouldn’t it? She was your girlfriend!”

“She’s pretty hot.”

“Yes, thank you, Josh, I’d noticed.”

“Donna…”

“Did she tell you that she asked me if I was in love with you? It was the night Zoey went missing, and I sometimes think that if that hadn’t happened, I’d have ended up telling her the truth.”

“No, she didn’t tell me that. I… I don’t think I’d have been very happy with her.”

Donna nods carefully.

“I was such a mess. It was… I got all tangled up between wanting you and being jealous of her… and you wanted her so I wanted to be like her and then that somehow became--”

“You wanted to be like her?”

“She was pretty amazing.”

“Was?”

She takes a steadying breath.

“Yeah. I’m a little worried about her now, actually. Before then… she was hard about the things that mattered, but she was fun, too, and she cared so much about the issues she worked on. These days… I don’t know, she just seems just hard.”

Donna’s capacity for compassion and the shrewdness of her observation floors him, and for a moment he forgets her previous revelations and makes a mental note to try to be a friend to Amy, rather than just her ex and now her boss. 

“You’re right. And I don’t think it’s weird.”

He feels her start to relax in his arms.

“That’s because you think it’s insanely hot.”

“Can you blame me?”

A smirk creeps onto her face.

“I guess not. We’re both pretty hot women.”

“I’ll say.”

She quirks an eyebrow at him and he continues hurriedly.

“You are, of course, much, much hotter than she is.”

She grins and kisses him, but she’s shaking her head.

“I’m really not, but you are adorable when you’re so turned on you’re completely flummoxed.”

“You really are. The whole serenity thing really works for you.”

“The unfreakoutability?”

“That too.”

She’s blushing again, but he has a point to make, now. He traces the contours of her face with a finger.

“Seriously, Donna. These past couple of years… I don’t know what you’ve done, I mean, I’ve always thought you were beautiful but you’ve, I don’t know, grown into your looks even more or something. You take my breath away.”

She turns again in his lap, so that she’s facing him, straddling his thighs.

“Thank you. I… I feel sexier. Even more so, since we… but even before.”

“It shows.”

“I know.”

And she runs her hand up his neck, and he feels the delicate metal hoop around her ring finger scrape against his skin, and suddenly the surrealism of their conversation is dwarfed by his sense of wonder at how far they’ve come, and how far they can still go, together.


End file.
